OpenPGP Mail Encryption and Related Tools For Linux, Windows – POFTUT

OpenPGP Mail Encryption and Related Tools For Linux, Windows

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OpenPGP is a email encryption standard used by a lot of people. This standard is defined by OpenPGP Working Group of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). The standard is proposed with RFC 4880 . The OpenPGP is derived from PGP software which is created by Phil Zimmermann.

OpenPGP Windows Tools

Gpg4win

Gpg4win is popular and actively developed software for mail privacy and secrecy. Its current version is 3 and can be used with smart cards. Here is some useful features

  • OpenPGP & S/MIME support
  • Windows version of GnuPG
  • Smart card support
  • Files and Folders signing and encyrpting
  • Checksum calculation and verfication
  • Email signing and encrytiong
  • User friendly certificate selection
  • Easy installation
  • Certificate Management with Kleopatra
  • Free software
Gpg4win
Gpg4win

Portable PGP

Portable PGP is fully featured, lightweight open source PGP tool. It is developed with Java programming language.It is not actively developed. Last version was 1.0.7 and released in 2012. But it has some features like

  • On the go USB-Stick support
Portable PGP
Portable PGP

eM Client

eM client is actually a versatile email client with calender, tasks and chat. But it has builtin PGP support. It is closed source software and commercial license cost 49.95 USD. But free version can be used for personal and non critical use.

eM Client
eM Client

Gpg4o

This tools is a Microsoft Outlook Add-in which implements OpenPGP standard with GnuPG libraries. It supports Outlook versions from Outlook 2012 . It is a closed source tool with a license fee 56,35 EU but free to personal use.

Thunderbird:Enigmail

Enigmail is a Thunderbird mail client addon used to encrypt and decrypt emails. It is called security addon in Thunderbird. It is an opensource software which can be used without a fee. It has following features.

  • Encrypt/sign mail when sending
  • Decrypt/authenticate received mail
  • Per-account based encryptions and signing defaults
  • Per-recipient rules for automated key selection
  • OpenPGP key management interface
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Thunderbird:Enigmail
Thunderbird:Enigmail

OpenPGP Linux Tools

Most of the PGP software implementations are developed for Linux and opensource systems. We will look different email clients which can send PGP encrypted email native or with a add on.

Evolution:Seahorse

Seahorse is a GNOMe application used to manage Public, Private Keys and password in GNOMe Keyring. Here the features of the Seahorse which can work with Evolution seamlessly.

  • Encrypt/decrypt/sign files and text.
  • Manage your keys and keyring.
  • Synchronize your keys and your keyring with key servers.
  • Sign keys and publish.
  • Cache your passphrase so you don’t have to keep typing it.
  • Backup your keys and keyring.
  • Add an image in any GDK supported format as a OpenGPG photo ID.
  • Create SSH keys, configure them, cache them.

seahorse.png

KMail:Kleopatra

Kleopatra is a certificate manager and universal crypto GUI developed by KDE community. It can work with KDE mail client KMail seamlessly. It has following features.

  • Support for X.509 Certificates
  • Support for OpenPGP certificates
  • Support for Certificate Chains
KMail:Kleopatra
KMail:Kleopatra

Mutt

Mutt is command line or terminal based email client popular in Linux community. Mutt provides a lot of useful features about email and security.

  • PGP Support
  • MIME Support

Thunderbird:Enigmail

This is the same as with Windows version of Thunderbird:Enigmail .

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